Los Angeles Lakers: 3 reasons they will not win the 2020-21 NBA title

1. The Los Angeles Lakers will have to win from the bottom of the bracket

Last season the Los Angeles Lakers sat atop the Western Conference standings at the end of the season, and while the NBA Bubble meant they didn’t exactly have “home court advantage” it gave them a successive series of more palatable matchups. They did not play a single team that won more than 46 wins in the regular season (with full understanding that no team played a full season).

This season the Lakers may not even get one opponent at the level of all of their opponents last year. With all the reasonable caveats about how well the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat were playing at the end of last season, the reality is that the Lakers did not play another “elite” on-paper team last season.

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The best winning percentage they faced was the Nuggets at .630 (won 63 percent of their games). Right now, if seed lines hold, the lowest they would face is…the Denver Nuggets at .630. Then their second-round opponent will likely be the Utah Jazz (.745), followed by either the Phoenix Suns (.722) or LA Clippers (.684) and finally perhaps the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA Finals (.673).

This is all a guessing game at this point, as we don’t know who will advance; in fact, the Miami Heat upsetting multiple teams en route to the Finals is part of why the Lakers’ road was so easy. Yet the reality remains that the Lakers’ path this year will by necessity be more difficult, and probably extremely so, than last season. That stems in large part from where they will be starting.

The Lakers’ roster without Anthony Davis and LeBron James has worked hard and caught some breaks to stay afloat in the absence of their stars, but that has still meant a slip down to sixth-place. If Davis and James return soon they could right the ship and climb back up, but barring the miraculous the highest they could reach is fourth. That means the toughest first-round opponent, then likely the top seed, all to reach the Conference Finals.

There is risk things could get worse, not better. The Lakers’ next two weeks feature five games against strong teams, including two games with the league-leading Jazz and two with the Dallas Mavericks, who are behind the Lakers in the standings and hoping to move up. It’s very possible the Lakers lose another spot over the following weeks, and a slim possibility they drop to seventh.

The 2019-20 Lakers were a deserving champion, but they caught breaks along the way and had relatively good health throughout their run to the title. That has not been the case this year, as the Western Conference is stronger and the East has a true super team developing to challenge LeBron and company. IF Davis and James come back healthy and IF Schroder can hold up defensively and IF things break right, the Lakers could still win the title.

But more than likely it is not happening. The weight of challenges stacking up is going to prove too great. In the end, the Los Angeles Lakers will be sent home, and another team will win the 2020-21 NBA championship.